Belarus to offer Russia to deploy extra warplanes as NATO active near borders

Belarus will request Russia to deploy up to 15 extra warplanes on its territory, as NATO is building up military presence in proximity to the Belarusian borders, President Aleksandr Lukashenko announced.

Speaking at a session of the country’s Security Council, he also
vowed “a reasonable response” to NATO’s strengthening
contingent near Belarus boundaries.

He stressed that Minsk “reacted calmly until a large exercise
began in Poland which requested reinforcements and larger scope
of the exercise.”

Lukashenko referred to the US deployment of a dozen F-16 fighter
jets and nearly 300 service personnel to Poland a part of a
training exercise which came in response to the crisis in
neighboring Ukraine.

Aside from that the US also sent six F-15 fighter jets to
Lithuania, in addition to four F-15s, which arrived on January 1,
to bolster NATO’ air patrol over Baltic airspace.

“They threw in extra half a dozen fighters and some other
planes which operate close to our borders, and we are acting
reasonably. The Minister of Defense received such an order long
ago and, as I am being told, it [the order] is being
fulfilled,” Lukashenko said.

From the west and northwest, Belarus borders on the NATO member
states of Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, and sees combat air
patrols of these Baltic states’ airspace as a potential threat to
its national security.

The situation in neighboring Ukraine, where Belarus leader said
“we have seen escalation of the conflict” is affecting
interests of his country, he pointed out.

“This escalation is happening not in Syria, Libya or Iraq.
It's near our borders,” he stressed.

Lukashenko has called on Ukrainian coup-appointed government to
focus on solving domestic conflict rather than on negotiations
with the West.

“[They] just have to work, and less run abroad. It is
necessary to think about their country and the welfare of the
people. How to do it? If necessary, we will advise and
help,” Lukashenko said.

When asked if the Ukraine scenario is possible in Belarus, as
some media reports speculated, the President ruled out such
possibility, saying that “there will be no Maidan in
Minsk”.

“We are not afraid of anything, absolutely, even more so, I
am not. We have no fundamental, conceptual reasons for such
revolutions. And the main reason for that [revolution in Ukraine]
we all know: terrible economic collapse, corruption, which led to
the collapse of the authorities,” he said

Lukashenko added that Belarus will act within the legal and
regulatory framework which exists between Belarus and Russia.
“I have said it several times that Russians and Belarusians
are one people and we will always be together.”

Russia and Belarus manage reciprocal air defense and joint
military maneuvers under agreements signed within the
Russia-Belarus Union State which was formed in 1999. Moscow and
Minsk also have an agreement (since 2009) on joint protection of
the Russia-Belarus Union State's airspace and the creation of an
integrated regional air defense network.

Last year, Minsk and Moscow agreed on Russia’s deploying a wing
of fighter jets at a military airbase in Belarus. Russia also
planned to deliver four battalions of S-300 surface-to-air
missiles to Belarus in 2014.

Belarus is not going to be “an initiator of escalation of any
process in connection with the Ukrainian events and the
confrontation of the West, the US, on the one side and Russia -
on the other,” Lukashenko concluded. “We will serve the
interests of our country, as well as our friends and neighbors,
that’s why don’t try to scare us in this respect.”